NetBeans Governance Board Election Process

This document describes the formal process of nomination and election of
members on the NetBeans Governance Board. For more information about the Board please
see the description of governance of netbeans.org.

Please note this process is determined entirely by the community. The
steps laid out below are the result of past open debate and discussion on
the nbdiscuss mailing list. If you feel something here should be changed or added, please speak up on
nbdiscuss.

Election Committee

An election committee will "run" the elections: Set out
dates, post announcements, collect nominations, set up and administer the
technical implementation side of the voting itself, and formally announce
the results. The election committee has previously consisted of members
of the NetBeans Evangelism
and Web teams.

Nominations

The nomination period shall run for 2 weeks;

A call for nominations
will be sent via email to top level mailing lists
nbannounce, nbdiscuss, nbdev and nbusers. This call will be sent
twice--once at the opening of the nomination period, and a second
"final call"
for nominations on the day before the period closes;

Any NetBeans community member is eligible for nomination;

Any NetBeans community member may nominate any number of community members;

As mentioned on the governance page,
the
Board consists of two "at-large" members, nominated by the community,
and one Oracle-appointed member. In theory, an Oracle employee can be
nominated for one of the
at-large positions (though in the past under Sun Microsystems such
nominees have declined their nominations
to avoid a Sun-majority on the Board). It is up to the
community to decide if they want this.

The nominations and elections page
will clearly list the current nominees and their acceptance or otherwise
of the nomination during the nomination period. A short profile of each
candidate will also be collected and made available on this page. This
page will be updated frequently throughout the period.

Voting

The poll and an encouragement to vote will be announced to the top
level mailing lists nbannounce, nbdiscuss, nbdev and nbusers. This
announcement will be sent three times - once at the opening of the
voting period, once at the half-way mark, and one "final call" on
the day before the voting period closes;

The poll will be "advertised" on the web site. Links to
the Board's responsibilities should also be clearly available;

Voting data will never be made public, though it will be collected
and kept in case an audit of results is required.

Results

Results will be announced on the top level mailing lists nbannounce,
nbdiscuss, nbdev and nbusers the day after the voting period closes.

The Board page will be updated to list
the newly elected board members after results are
announced.